Peaceable Kingdom (mobi)

by Jack Ketchum

  “Okay. Where to?”

  “Take a walk, have a drink. We’ll see.”

  “You going to see Claire?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. I guess I’ll figure that one out once I’m out there. She still doesn’t want to see me.”

  She put down the pen.

  “David, are we in trouble? Do we need to talk?”

  “No, we’re not in trouble. At least not now. I don’t know about the long run. I don’t know where we’re going. But we don’t need to talk, not now.”

  “I worry.”

  “Don’t. It’s okay. I just might need to see her. I don’t know.”

  She looked at him and nodded. “All right. Be careful,” she said.

  She meant it. All that careful entailed.

  “I will. I love you.”

  She went back to her papers. He thought how strange this would look to some outsider. As though she really didn’t care. But he knew she did care and how much. They had thirty years together and the ties were strong even if sometimes invisible to most people, stretched thin these days because he had fallen in love and she of course knew as she knew everything important in his life—and maybe it was that knowing, as much as the cats they shared or the apartment they shared or the fact that she was his first best critic or even the years themselves of order and easy companionship which was why he stayed and couldn’t seem to leave.

  Sarah was family by now. He had no other.

  He put on his jacket and stepped into the hall and locked the door behind him.

  EIGHT

  Half-past midnight and Claire was finally getting to eat—the ceasar salad with grilled chicken she’d asked the cook to leave for her in the microwave. They’d been slammed all night long for a change but now there was only old Willie in his usual corner, arms folded in front of him and half asleep over his beer. When she finished she’d roust him. Willie weighed in at a good two hundred pounds and he’d already fallen off his barstool once since she’d started working here only a few weeks ago. He was going to crack his head open one of these days. She didn’t want it to be on her watch.

  Sandi dumped the last of the candles out of its holder into the black plastic trash bag down at the end of the bar, sighed and smiled and untied her waitress’ apron and slid it off over her head.

  “I’m outa here, that okay?”

  They’d already split the tips and balanced out the register. There hadn’t been any discrepancies between that and the cash-due printout or they’d have had to go through the checks together one by one to find the error. And Sandi looked dead on her feet.

  “Sure. Go. You have a good night.”

  “What’s left of it.”

  “Give that guy a hug for me.”

  “Yeah. Hey, listen, I really want to thank you for that. I really appreciate you talking to me. It helped.”

  “Kenny’s a good kid. Everybody screws up now and then. Just don’t let him make a habit of it, that’s all.”

  Sandi smiled again and slipped on her jacket and hoisted her shoulderbag.

  “I won’t. See you tomorrow?”

  “I’ll be here.”

  She finished her salad. Hell, she’d wolfed the damn thing down. You got busy, you didn’t have time to eat. Then you forgot to eat. Pretty soon you were starving. It was high time she had a shot and a Marlboro. She poured a double Cuervo neat and lit up and let the smoke slide down deep.

  “Hey, Willie. Last call.”

  “Hmmmm?”

  She watched the heavy eyelids slide up and then down again—what her father used to call the Long Blink.

  “Willie. Hey.”

  “Hmmmm?”

  “Time to go.”

  “Oh yeah, ’course. Okay I finish this?” He smiled.

  “Sure.”

  She watched his fingers toy with the neck of the Heineken, literally feeling around for the thing, and then grip it and pour. He had about a third of a glass left. She took a hit of the Cuervo and another pull on the cigarette and walked around the service station and then down the bar past him to turn off the central air over by the plateglass window and then heard the sounds of the city rush in to her left as the man opened the door and stepped through. The man nodded and smiled and took off his thin brown leather gloves and she thought, shit, why does this always happen to me? because she was supposed to stay open until one if there were any customers at all, that was the rule in this place and here it was twelve forty-five and it would be just her luck and she was just that new on the job that the boss would come around to check up on her if she told this guy she was closed already.

  The man was tall and wore a good brown three-piece suit and he put his brown leather briefcase down on the bar eight stools back from Willie, just in front of the register and smiled again and said, evening.

  “Evening,” Willie said.

  The man just looked at him.

  She had to laugh.

  “I’m just about to close,” she said. “So this’ll be last call. But what can I get you?”

  If he knew about anything he knew about bars and barflies and he could tell from the way the fat guy was sitting on his stool that he was about to drop, that she sure wasn’t going to serve him again so that was when he’d made his move. He’d walked across the street from the flower shop where he’d been pretending to admire the window display and through the door. From where he stood he had a perfect view of the street and the corner of Columbus and 70th. Nice easy monitoring.

  “What’s on tap?” he said and she told him. He said he’d take the Amstel.

  The Amstel came in a frosted mug. He liked that. He took a sip and watched her rinse a few glasses and dry her hands and then walk over to the fat guy in the corner. He liked the way she walked. It was assertive, very New York.

  “Hey, Willie. Wake up, Willie.”

  “Huh?”

  “Finish your beer.”

  “Right. Okay.”

  He tilted the glass and drank and set it down again.

  “Tomorrow’s another night, Willie. Finish it up.”

  “Okay.” He did. “What I owe you?”

  “You already paid me.”

  “I did?”

  “Yep.”

  “Tip?”

  “You left a good one, Willie. Thanks.”

  “Pleasure,” he said and smiled and waved at her once like he was the goddamn Pope bestowing a drunk benediction and slid off the barstool. He tugged once at the collar of his faded grey raincoat and straightened up and managed not to stagger as he walked out the door.

  God, he hated barflies. Fucking disgusting.

  She went back to the dishes again.

  “He’s really a very nice guy,” she said. “But with all that weight he’s carrying I worry about him. I’m afraid he’s going to have a heart attack or something right in the middle of my shift. Then what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t blame you. But say it did happen, what would you do?”

  She shrugged. “Call 911 I guess. I’ve seen CPR but I’ve never, you know, actually done it.”

  “You’ve seen CPR?”

  “Movies, television. Not in real life.”

  “Oh. I’m Larry by the way.”

  He put out his hand. She smiled and dried hers on a towel and took it.

  “Claire. Nice to meet you.”

  “Nice to meet you, Claire.”

  He looked around while she went back to the glasses in the sink and thought, hell, as good a time as any, slipped on the surgical gloves out of her sightlines beneath the bar, unlatched the briefcase and opened it and pushed it aside with the top open so that it would block any view from the street and lay the gun down softly on the bar.

  “Claire?”

  She looked at him first and then at his hand spread over the gun and he watched her face change. He always liked this moment. Revelation-time.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do, Claire. We’re going to pretend we’re a pair of old friends, maybe
we even dated way back when, who knows? and I’m here closing up with you, so you do what you do every night, only I’m here. You lock the door and hit the lights outside and dim the ones in here. Only difference is that once you’ve done all that you empty the register into this briefcase. Me, I’m just having a drink. You understand?”

  She nodded.

  “Okay, now go on about your business. And Claire? Don’t even think about trying to run out that door. I know you really want to very much right now but here’s the thing, it takes too long to open the door, throw it back and then go through. Believe me, I know. You’ll be dead before you hit the sidewalk. And I’m already up for Murder One in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut so it won’t mean a thing to me one way or another.”

  He clicked off the safety.

  “Do we have a meeting of the minds here, Claire?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You know what you’re supposed to do?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then go.”

  “The keys are in my bag. The door keys.”

  “So? Get ’em.”

  He watched her, trying to gauge her reaction as she stooped down to the floor for her bag and set it in front of the speed rack and opened it and fished out her keyring. Her hands were shaking as she fumbled for the right one and that was good. Her color was off and that was good too.

  But she kept glancing up at him—just before she stooped to retrieve her bag and then as she set it on the speed rack and then again as she turned the corner at the service station and a fourth time as she passed him headed for the door. He thought, this one’s a wiseass, she’s trying to memorize what I look like, but there were ways to minimize that possibility and ways to wipe it out almost completely.

  It was called shock therapy.

  The night had turned chilly and David was unprepared for that, dressed only in a light tan jacket and even with it zipped to the chin the wind off the river along West End Avenue was enough to send him immediately east all the way across to Central Park West where the packed-together rows of high-end residentials blocked it. He walked from 63rd all the way up to 78th Street wondering what he was doing, keeping to the west side against the buildings both for the shelter and because you never knew about Central Park and who you might encounter this time of night. It was a lonely stretch though pretty well lit—a few people out walking their dogs or on their way home from somewhere or other and light two-way traffic. He supposed the street matched his mood. Lonely and at least half-lit.

  At 78th he crossed three blocks over to Broadway though her bar was back on Columbus. He meant, he guessed, to describe a wide circle around her and only then, if he hadn’t managed to shake this feeling by then, narrow in. He hoped the feeling would just go away. It was stupid, what he was doing. Even just standing across the street from the bar watching her through the plate-glass window would be stupid because if he could see her then there was also the possibility that she’d see him. Never mind that it was easily as humiliating as standing under her apartment window. To go inside and try to talk to her, which was what he really wanted to do, which was what he was aching to do, was bound to cause more hurt for both of them.

  There could be no good ending to this.

  But he was doing it anyway.

  He headed down Broadway, hands shoved into his jeans against the cold. Some of the bars were still packed mostly with kids in their twenties and he heard music and loud laughter and other bars were still and dark, closed already or just about to close and the thought came to him suddenly that he had no idea how business was over at her place. She could easily have locked up and gone home by now. It was a definite possibility.

  The thought filled him with a kind of dread and he picked up his pace so that by the time he crossed against the red and passed Gray’s Papaya at 72nd Street his heart was pounding so he slowed again. It wouldn’t be good for her to see him this way, if he was going to be seen at all. He still wasn’t sure about that. Wasn’t sure what in the hell he was going to do.

  But this feeling hadn’t been mitigated being out here. The night air hadn’t cleared his head or cured him. Not by a long shot. He was so close. To seeing her at least. To something.

  He turned east at 70th and walked slowly toward Columbus.

  She was going to keep this under control. He wouldn’t use the gun.

  He wanted the money, that’s all.

  Fine.

  “I cashed out already,” she said. “The money’s in back.”

  “What’s in the drawer?”

  “Two hundred startup money for tomorrow.”

  “Put it in the briefcase. Cash box or safe?”

  “Cash box, locked in the desk. They wouldn’t trust me with the safe. I’m still new here.”

  “Oh? You’re not trustworthy?”

  “I’m new here.”

  She stacked the money in his briefcase. She watched him sip his beer.

  “You already said that. But what I asked you is, are you trustworthy?”

  “Y-yes.”

  Stop that, she thought. Shit! You don’t want to show him fear. Not the slightest bit of fear.

  “Should I trust you to go in back there and get the box for me?”

  “Up to you.”

  He smiled and looked her up and down and she wished she’d worn something a little less clingy than the thin scoop-neck blouse.

  “I don’t think so,” he said. “You’re a woman. And I wouldn’t trust a woman on a short leash with her fucking legs cut off. Nothing personal. Walk me back. And keep your hands down at your sides. Move.”

  She walked back through the tables and chairs stacked for the night back to the office and opened the office door and thought of slamming it in his face but that was only a thought and nothing she’d consider for a moment because all he wanted was the money. She found the right key for the drawer and opened it, took out the cash box and put it on the desk beside the printer and computer.

  She turned.

  And he was so close. The gun only inches from her chest. She lurched back and her hip hit the desk. It hurt. Her mouth was very dry all of a sudden.

  “You want me to . . . I mean, should I open it? Or you want to just take it as it is?

  “Open it. I like to see what I’ve got.”

  He was smiling again and the brown eyes seemed to jitter back and forth and she thought strangely of ants or bees, of insects.

  And there was no smile in the eyes at all.

  It was a relief to turn back to the desk. Not to have to look at the eyes. She used three fingers against the box to steady her thumb and forefinger and finally found the keyhole and turned the key and turned and stepped away a little to her left. He lifted the lid.

  “You had a good night, Claire.”

  He shut it again and took one step toward her, his face only inches from her face, directly in front of her.

  “You really don’t know CPR?”

  “What?”

  “You really don’t know CPR? Just from what you see on television?”

  “I never . . .”

  “So what happens if some customer throws a fit or something? I’m just curious. Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of this bar, Claire? Isn’t that you? It’s not the waiter who’s in charge, it’s not the fucking busboy. Is pouring a goddamn beer the only thing you’re good for? What about responsibility? Suppose I pitched a fit or something! What would you do for me? Call 911 while I’m dying here? Jesus Christ!”

  He’s crazy, she thought. He’s a goddamn fucking lunatic and God knows what a lunatic will do.

  Maybe it isn’t just the money.

  And for the first time now he really scared her.

  He had her now, he could tell by the look on her face, time to put the real fear of God into the bitch and see if she remembered anything but fear after that. He put the gun against her temple and backed her ass to the desk again.

  “Open your mouth.”

  “What?”

&n
bsp; “I said open your mouth. Do it, Claire.”

  She did.

  “All right, now keep it open, understand? I’m gonna show you something. I’m gonna show you how to do CPR.”

  He reached over and pinched her nostrils shut. Her eyes skittered. He took a deep breath and put his mouth over hers and exhaled hard and heard her gasp when he pulled away and try to catch her breath but he did it again before she could, emptied his lungs into her and this time when he let her up for air she was coughing and her eyes were gleaming with tears.

  She tasted like smoke and tequila.

  The coughing stopped. She leaned back against the desk, chest heaving.

  “There you go. Of course you’d be on your back, normally. But you get the idea. Grab the cash box. Come on.”

  He marched her back the way they’d come and saw her wipe her cheek with one hand and thought, good start.

  David sat on the steps of a brownstone across the street from the ornate blue-and-gold Pythian building, a lit cigarette in his hand, trying to will his heart to stop pounding. He’d gotten halfway down the block when it felt like somebody had put a hand to his chest and said, asshole, don’t you take another step further. Don’t even think it.

  He had no business being here.

  Not on the steps, nobody would care about that—but being here. This close. Thinking what he was thinking.

  She’d said she didn’t want to see him, period and no hedging this time, that she couldn’t see him, that seeing him had become a kind of grief played over and over again and that they simply had to stop, get away from one another and go lick their wounds until maybe in time they could be friends again or something like friends but that now they could be nothing.

  It was the act of a willful selfish child to be this close to her.

  What he needed to do was go home. Be an adult.

  He’d made his choice. He should live with it.

  He gasped at a sudden unexpected rush of tears. That he should have to choose at all. Not fair.

  He wiped away the tears and drew on the cigarette and sat there, slowly calming.

  “Pour me another Amstel, Claire. This one’s gone flat. Use one of those good frozen mugs you’ve got there.”

  She did as he told her to do while he transfered the contents of the cash box to his briefcase, poured the beer and set it in front of him, trying to keep her hands from shaking, trying not to spill it, not to show. The taste of him was still in her mouth. He handed her the empty box.